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Today, the Supreme Court of India upheld the death penalty awarded to all the four rapists – Akshay Thakur, Pawan Gupta, Vinay Sharma, and Mukesh Singh, who, along with one Ram Singh who killed himself in the jail, and Mohammed Afroz, the juvenile who was the cruelest and most brutal… among the lot of six devilish men who raped and destroyed Jyoti Singh Pandey that horrible, fateful night in Delhi on December 16, 2012.

I am not concerning myself with all those who have erupted over how death penalty should be abolished in a country considering itself a civilised one. This is because I am yet to attain the large-heartedness required to view such a person from the lens of human rights. Anyway, Indian law allows death penalty only in the ‘rarest of the rare’ cases and this one has been deemed as such.

“The casual manner with which she was treated and the devilish manner in which they played with her identity and dignity is humanly inconceivable. It sounds like a story from a different world where humanity has been treated with irreverence.”

My question is, isn’t every case of rape and sexual exploitation an instance of treatment of the other (women, children – girls AND boys) in a devilish manner in which the perpetrator plays with their identity and dignity, which is humanly inconceivable? Doesn’t every such instance sound like a story from a different world where humanity has been treated with irreverence?

The court also said while upholding the death sentence that the offence had created a tsunami of shock.

I still think that the above statement reflects the imperfect way in which justice is perceived in our society. What if this tsunami had not come? Would the crime have become any less devilish? Would Jyoti have suffered any less than she did?

Which moves me to ask another question: HOW do we really perceive sexual crimes in our society?

Is it the fact that so many people in the society got all shook up by this one crime that made all the difference in looking at how severe it really was – trying very hard to set aside knowledge that they inserted a rod into her body and pulled out her vital organs? So, is it the number of people that matters? What if Jyoti and her friend that night hadn’t been left for the dead on one of Delhi’s busy roads and had instead been found in some far-off town or village?

What happens to all such cases of extreme brutality but diminished proximity to the Capital? I should not need to utter the word ‘extreme’ to qualify brutality here. Sexual abuse is the very worst form of abuse and there can’t really be a continuum or a scale of suffering or humiliation one undergoes; there may be for the sake of technicalities, which may exist for the sake of a society that finds it hard to choose the appropriate response to such crimes but that’s exactly is the issue here! – we’re back to the drawing board.

Where does the mischief end and abuse begin – and abuse end and horror begin – and horror end and devilishness begin? So, think again, is it the numbers that matter? Is it about the large number of people feeling shocked, disgusted, angry and feeling fearful and unsafe? Why is it that this instance had people up in arms at protests across the country while hundreds of rapes occur everyday without this level of brutality but it is rape nonetheless – if you can imagine a non-brutal way that would be a travesty. Isn’t this a societal flaw? A loophole that makes such dangerous elements as these six men feel a lot safer than their victims?

Along with the judgement, apparently, the court also had a few words on the ‘situation’ regarding the society.

A percentage change of 110.5% in the cases of crime against women has been witnessed over the past decade (2005 to 2015), meaning thereby that crime against women has more than doubled in a decade.

An overall crime 318 rate under the head, ‘crime against women’ was reported as 53.9% in 2015, with Delhi UT at the top spot.

And the following commentary:

Stringent legislation and punishments alone may not be sufficient for fighting increasing crimes against women. In our tradition bound society, certain attitudinal change and change in the mind-set is needed to respect women and to ensure gender justice. Right from childhood years’ children ought to be sensitized to respect women. A child should be taught to respect women in the society in the same way as he is taught to respect men. Gender equality should be made a part of the school curriculum. The school teachers and parents should be trained, not only to conduct regular personality building and skill enhancing exercise, but also to keep a watch on the actual behavioural pattern of the children so as to make them gender sensitized.

This is what I wonder about. Culturally, we take a very serious view of rape. But our view is extremely flawed. It is consistently victim-shaming. This view is reflected in the fact that for centuries we have chosen to hide our girls and curtail the freedoms of our women rather than let them live freely. We treat rape victims with ostracisation, humiliation, and a huge lack of empathy, individual, social, and sadly, institutional.

Our view needs to focus on the perpetrators. What makes these men want to do such things? What makes them think they can go ahead and do it? What makes them think they can get away with it? Wait. Scratch that last question – the answer to this is completely obvious. Our policing and judicial systems, and of course our political class, should be made to answer.

The problem lies with our men. Only with our men. It is not about the victim.

Who is Nirbhaya? Nirbhaya was a woman who was brutally gang-raped on December 16, 2012, who succumbed to her injuries 2 weeks later in a Singapore hospital.

And who is Jyoti Singh Pandey? Jyoti was a 23-year-old physiotherapy student and daughter of Asha Devi and Badrinath Singh, one of the three children in a family from Ballia, Uttar Pradesh. Her parents sold their ancestral land to make sure their daughter, along with their sons, had equal access to education. She always wanted to be a doctor and serve people. Yes, she died a victim of a brutal, cruel gang-rape. Let’s not hotfoot around her identity. Maybe we have this the wrong way up in our society.

This is what her father had said earlier: “We want the world to know her real name. My daughter didn’t do anything wrong, she died while protecting herself. I am proud of her. Revealing her name will give courage to other women who have survived these attacks. They will find strength from my daughter.”

Let’s face it. This is damaged men who know nothing but a perverted world view. For them, anyone who is less powerful than them is just a place, a theatre, a thing where their acts can be carried out. They and their less active variants – individuals or institutions that aid them to act around in our society pose an ever greater threat to our safety.

This is not about teaching men to “respect” women. This is about teaching men how to be human. Sadly, most of these aren’t.

And the quantum of punishment is another travesty – max 7 years life imprisonment. Which is rarely given. That’s why it falls upon us women to become ‘nirbhayas‘ and ‘daminis‘ and all. Because we simply do not have a choice. This shouldn’t be Jyoti’s fate after all she has been through. She should be Jyoti Singh Pandey.

What do you do when you can’t write? What do you do when you don’t want to write? What do you when this is because you desperately NEED to write?

You write.

Soh much has happened in the 20 days since I wrote last. And every moment since, I’ve felt like writing. I’ve felt pressured into writing something ‘significant’ but never got to start because I knew that wasn’t the time (Do YOU, reader, ever get that feeling? Of wanting to do something well or not do it at all?); I felt like I just didn’t have my thoughts together yet. Talk about perfect being the enemy of good.

Let’s see.

Terrorism seems to be really on over the past two weeks, as with gun violence in the US of A. It’s a world going potty. Ever imagine why it’s always men going loopy and barbaric and violent? Syria, Bangladesh, Germany, France… the list goes on. The religion of peace trying its best to keep it down. Yes, some of you will fine me politically incorrect but ask those who perpetrated these violent acts; they think they are the only true followers of this religion. So, it doesn’t really matter what we guys think about their religiousness. We’re not pointing the guns at others, they are. That they have the raw material to go ahead with this all is appalling, yes.

Qandeel Baloch, the Pakistani model non-confirmist was killed by her brother because he somehow believed (as do most men) that her sort of actions were bringing dishonour to their family name. The father now wants ‘revenge’ and wants his son to be ‘shot’. Uff, men!

And then, gun violence. And Obama’s speeches on gun control. Put that on a loop. But that won’t be enough to drown out Trump’s calls for sheer constitutional anarchy. Of course, Hillary’s speech was something but I wouldn’t bet on her just yet. It’s interesting how people are asking about how DNC mails got leaked instead of investigating possible punitive measures for wrongdoing and thinking how to right those wrongs.

Back home, Barkha Dutt blew the war bugle at Arnab Goswami when the latter shouted into TV screens about journos who are forwarding Pakistani agenda on the Kashmir issue. It was a generic rant specific enough only to lead us to infer that he may have been talking about Barkha and the likes of her. Surprising as it is for the common man, Barkha was paying attention and did manage, over all the noise Arnab creates, to actually hear what he was saying.

She took it that it was she he was talking about. Barkha Dutt is very important, mind you. Especially to herself. So she ranted out tweets twisting Arnab’s words, and because Arnab didn’t care, he didn’t come back at her. As a result, she refused to “give a toss” about the whole thing and conveyed this in the manner of a looooongish FB post. Then a blog followed in order to keep stirring the pot. Oh, in between, did I mention she got an endorsement from Hafiz Saeed?

Hafiz Saeed who? He’s the chief of a terrorist organisation operating out of Pakistan, and regularly hatches plans for terrorist acts in my country, India. I really hope that while Barkha was busy being so prolific on social media, she took out a moment to thank Saeed on his LinkedIn profile. It’s an endorsement that got Barkha noticed and how!

At the time of writing this, the issue festers. Because Barkha won’t let go. Barkha wants to have her cake and eat it too. She wants to speak against ‘violence’ in the Kashmir Valley without calling it ‘terrorism’ sponsored by the Pakistani state.

She wants to cry for a state whose people (only those inspired by Hurriyat Conference and their ilk, let me be fair) push women and children in the frontlines of a mob pelting stones as well as molotov cocktails so that Indian Army using pellets instead of real guns in the face of REAL THREAT would be deterred on humanitarian grounds. She supports their calls for their Azaadi because of what she’s smoking in her leftist-socialist-intellectual utopia that only knows how to piss on the idea of the very statehood that allows her to call out for Azaadi for people threatening that statehood. This is not very intellectual, actually. It’s definitely not Leftist or Socialist. It’s sheer abuse of the freedom that the statehood affords her.

And now let’s touch what the likes of Barkha sympathise with. The killing of Burhan Wani. The bad boy of Kashmir Valley. The Indian Army neutralised him for conducting terrorist activities and using social media to lure people into joining terrorist groups. He was a terror propagandist, something like social media marketing of terror. That makes him a terrorist. This went on on our TV screens while Kashmiris (those who support separatism and also, terrorism) mourned, protested, and indulged in violence against their own Army.

Intellectuals were bothered that a “boy” – 22 years old at the time of his death – was gunned down by the armed forces. They forget that this boy was a ‘commander’ with Hizbul Mujahideen. They wondered if he should have been killed in such a manner! He picked up arms at the age of 15 by the way; in a parallel universe, he could have picked up studies or tennis or knitting. He went pro a few years ago. Yet, he remained a boy. By those standards, don’t all men? (they want their toys, their place in the team, and will go to any length to protect them). Besides, he was of marriageable age, and old enough to vote.

Ironically, women, even when they become CEOs, are derisively referred to as ‘girls’ and 18 year old Miss Universes dying to lift people out of poverty are called young women.

Coming back to Kashmir, you won’t find so much anger against the rape of young Kashmiri girls and women by army men.

Burhan’s killing was a state goal and the Army’s mission and their duty. Somehow, when a terrorist dies, Kashmir mourns and bleeds. When citizens are raped… An armyman committing a crime versus doing his duty. There’s something very wrong and very twisted here.

As with the rest of my country and its people. A gang of robbers today waylaid a car in which a family was travelling, took them aside, and raped the mother and daughter before taking away their belongings. 12 men raped these two women for 3 hours. This happened in Noida. Again men.

What’s wrong with you men, I wonder. Your concept of honour, love, society, relationships seems seriously dented and damaged. Is it you or is it the society? Wait. You make the society because your word rules. So, it is you, after all. And we women get lost in your maze of untruths and half-truths, compete in a game that’s hardly fair, hardly a game anyway.

I’m going to use a picture of Qandeel with this post. This world is cruel but some of us make it beautiful and worth living.

AT least two men carried out a sexually perverted and brutal attack on a 4-year-old, who is being treated in Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital. The attackers, in a sign of mental sickness and perversion, slashed her entire body with knives, tore her privates apart, sodomised her, and left her for the dead on Friday evening near her home on Lawrence Road in Keshav Puram, northwest Delhi.

The girl is battling for life, and will live with a stool bag for the next few months.

The Delhi Police have registered a case under relevant sections of IPC and POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Acts and a manhunt has been launched. The accused are yet to be identified.

“We have zeroed in on some suspects and we are keeping a watch. Once the girl recovers, we will be able to get more clues about the accused,” an officer said, requesting anonymity.

Recalling Friday’s horror, her father said, “My father had returned from work around 5pm and saw my daughter playing in the house. He had to meet someone in the locality for work-related enquiries when she went out with her friends. We don’t know when the girls reached the railway phatak (crossing). A group of men are always drinking and playing cards there. The other girls now tell us that two men offered her toffees and biscuits. One of them picked her up in his arms and left.”

Two hours later, when the family was already exhausted searching for her on every road in the area, a woman brought her back soaked in blood. She had apparently been taken to a jungle near the railway line, brutalised and dumped. The area is full of concrete materials dumped and locals use it for defecating. The woman was also out to relieve herself at the spot.

“She could not speak a word when she recovered. Doctors told us she was throttled. However, they have assured us that she will get back her voice,” the grandfather said.

Dr AK Rai, medical superintendent, Safdarjung Hospital, said the girl was brought to the hospital at around 8 pm after being referred from Bhagwan Mahavir Hospital.

“She was brought with cut marks all over her face and abdomen, her vagina and rectum both seriously injured. We had to perform a threehour colostomy to provide an alternate opening for her to pass stool. Her colon will take time to recover and come back to normal functioning. A surgery to close the colostomy will be required later,” said Dr Rai.

Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chief Swati Maliwal visited Safdarjung Hospital on Saturday noon and spoke to the distraught parents. She tweeted: “Visited the little girl, her condition can’t be described. Horrific. Her parents are extremely poor. When will this heinous crime stop in Delhi [sic].”

She also wrote on Twitter later: “Every day we have a Nirbhaya in Delhi and the Nirbhaya Fund is lying unused. Pathetic. In 2014, only nine accused were convicted in Delhi in crime against women. Can you imagine! Tabhi to Delhi mei kisi ko darr nai hai (That’s why no one is scared in Delhi).”

“We had not anticipated this when we shifted to Delhi from Orai in Uttar Pradesh’s Jalaun district around a decade ago,” the girl’s grandfather told Mail Today. “We are poor. I work as a labourer. My son was a painter and daughter-in-law Seema is a household maid. When we found a shelter in the Lawrence Road jhuggis, I could see that the mahaul (environment) was not good, but there was no other option. Now we are paying for it.”